


The Batgirl from Gotham City

by Moirae (TigerDragon), TiaNadiezja



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hostage Situations, Mentor/Protégé, Training
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerDragon/pseuds/Moirae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiaNadiezja/pseuds/TiaNadiezja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The Bat... a figure in the modern legends of Gotham.  Metropolis has its sun god, Central City has the red blur, and Los Angeles has its emerald knight, but Gotham’s great defender has never had a reliable report of his existence, much less his methods.</i> </p><p>There are a lot of things that Barbara Gordon expects from her life. The opportunity to gather primary source material for her paper on the nightmare guardian of Gotham City isn't one of them, and when she gets it, it sets things in motion that are going to derail all her plans and expectations. But then, Gotham City has always had its ways of testing its people, especially the best of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The usual disclaimers apply: we don't own _Batman_ or any of the other DC intellectual property appearing here, and we don't intend to turn a profit off this in any way. 
> 
> For those of you who've been following TiaNadiezja and I's work for a while, you know that when an idea gets hold of us, it tends to take hold pretty firmly. When she finished reading Tiger and I's Ironclad series, one of the things she and I wound up talking at length about is what exactly defined various superheroes, and how depended those definitions were on gender.
> 
> Batman came up. Then _this_ happened to us.
> 
> We hope you all enjoy it.
> 
> P.S. - For those of you following our other work (especially _Last Daughter of Krypton_ ), don't spend any worry on the idea that we've abandoned any of our ongoing projects. Tia, Tiger and I have a lot of irons in the fire at any given moment, but we're working on all of them as our schedules allow, and we will get to every one of them in course of time. Thanks for being patient, and we hope the product of our work is worth the inconvenience of the wait.
> 
> Love,  
> Dragon

_The Bat... a figure in the modern legends of Gotham.  Metropolis has its sun god, Central City has the red blur, and Los Angeles has its emerald knight, but Gotham’s great defender has never had a reliable report of his existence, much less his methods._

_There is, however, sufficient anecdotal evidence to put forward a hypothesis._

_The Bat works at night, hiding himself in the shadows in the poorest parts of Gotham - the slums, the docks, the warehouses, Crime Alley - and strikes at his foes before they see him.  He is methodical, tactically brilliant, and well-equipped.  Criminals who have met the Bat all give different details on his appearance, and some even say that the Bat is a woman!  (Harvey Bullock’s report on the Resham armed robbery, page 8.  How do I mark a police report in my bibliography? Look that up, Barbara, and do it before you print this out!)  He is careful, as well... far more careful around guns and knives than Superman or the Green Lantern.  (Vale, Legend of the Bat-Man, 121)_

_Too careful for a man who is invulnerable.  The care he takes slows him down._

_Thus, we know the following about the Bat: He is human, or at least lacks the dramatic superpowers of the other cities’ guardians.  He is a genius, of the sort that only arrives a few times in a generation.  He has, through either personal wealth or the support of a patron, sufficient resources to equip himself with top-grade body armor, night vision, and personal aerodynamic devices - the entirety of equipment used in just one well-described appearance (Jim Corrigan’s report on the Reeves kidnapping, plus Kane Arms catalogue, various pages) would cost somewhere between seven hundred thousand and four million dollars.  And, thus, either the Bat or his benefactor must have a motive for spending that kind of money on fighting crime in ways the police, because of their requirements to work within the law, cannot._

That, she decided, was enough work for one night. _I wanted to write an outline and ended up writing my premise and conclusion.  I’ll flesh it out in the morning._  Barbara Gordon closed her laptop computer, enjoying the click as its locking mechanism slid into place, then rose to her feet. _There’s that police benefit to get ready for._

Outside in the dark, something whispered overhead that rattled the building subtly with its passage.

 _A jet... something small, to be close enough to shake the building but that quiet... except something small wouldn’t shake the building._  Barbara dropped her blouse onto the bed and ran to the window to look.

For a moment, she thought she might have missed it, and then a cloud peeled back from the full moon and she caught a clear look as it banked across the silvery globe - black and sleek and moving fast against the night sky, hard-angled for stealth, engines buried glows of red deep in the flanks to shield against IR - long, sleek central segment, forward-swept wings driven out to sharp points, moving like a jet but vectoring in flight. VTOL? Then the moonlight reduced it to silhouette, and she saw it - not a precise resemblance, but the evocation. _A Bat._

_He is real._

Barbara stared at the plane for a long moment, then quickly pulled a piece of paper from her printer and a pen from the cup on her desk and began to sketch.  In only a few moments, she had the outline of the plane and its major features, as well as she could see through the window, against the light of the full moon.  Her memory would fill in the details later.

She looked down at the picture for what felt like a long, long time and then pressed her pen to the paper once more, writing a name for the aircraft in large, print letters below it.

_Batwing._

Out there in the night over Gotham, a benevolent predator moved across the sky.

“Barbara,” her father called from downstairs, “are you ready yet?”

“Almost, Dad!”  Barbara smiled at the sound of her father’s voice.   _Of course, Gotham has a few defenders who don’t hide in the shadows._  She finished changing quickly, into her dark blue button-down blouse and long black skirt, then added the red heels before rushing downstairs as quickly as the shoes allowed.

“There you are.” James Worthington Gordon smiled up at his daughter. “You look wonderful. Are you sure you want to do this on a school night? I can manage without you.”

“There’s absolutely no way you’re doing this without me.”  Barbara took her father’s arm.  “You need your rest too, after all... and some time to, maybe, have a _little_ fun at the party.  A few minutes not chatting up big donors to close the budget gap.”

“Hmmph.” Commissioner Gordon, who had faced down murderers and madmen without batting an eyelash, couldn’t hold back a rueful chuckle when he looked down at the slim, compact girl he’d somehow managed to raise. “I’m not _that_ afraid of the trust-fund brigade.”

“Who said anything about afraid?  They just want too many words each, and don’t leave you any time for the refreshments.”  Barbara joined him in laughter.  “Or the dancing, which you’re absolutely doing at least a little of tonight.”

“I don’t usually dance,” he began, then got a look at her eyes and chuckled. “But in this case, I might make an exception.”

 

 ********

The Martha Wayne Foundation Police Gala was one of the highlights of the social season, and you could reliably count on most of high society to turn up - the Kanes, in particular, who were by far the most fruitful surviving of the Four Families. The other three limbs of that tree were down to a single branch each - Oswald Cobblepot, Thomas Elliot and Helen Wayne. The first two were unlikely to put in an appearance, but the last could be counted on to turn up in her own inimitable style. It was her mother's foundation, after all.

“Jim Gordon!” The backless, clinging black dress and diamonds were even more upper crust than the half-empty champagne flute in the young scion of industry's hand. Helen Wayne had her mother’s Kane cheekbones and her father’s clear blue Wayne eyes, but the slightly intoxicated smile on her face when she dragged a hand through her coal-black hair and then wrapped the attached arm around the Commissioner’s shoulder was entirely her own. “Jim Gordon, as I live and breathe, I think you get younger every year. You have _got_ to let me introduce you to my dates for the night - they are just going to love meeting the old warhorse of Gotham City himself.”

 _Helen Wayne always manages to remind me of the worst traits of every last Kane I’ve ever met._  Barbara took a few steps away from her father to give him room to talk with the woman.   _Still... the last check she wrote to the Department had five zeros on it, and she’s a big donor to the Police Widows’ Fund as well.  So... bad habits, good heart, maybe?_  Barbara looked past Helen, to the two models who were obviously with her.  Dark-haired young man with very nice shoulders, blonde woman whose ass filled in the tight red dress she’d worn to the dance quite well.   _And excellent taste in arm candy... she and Cobblepot must bid up the prices on top-end escorts in this town to the point that no one else can get any at all._

Jim Gordon gritted his teeth, smiled and wondered what had ever happened to the nice girl with sad, dark eyes who’d made the nightly news after her parents died. Probably too much booze and too much money - that could do ugly things to people, though in her case she at least seemed to restrict herself to being what the old-fashioned folks would call a good time girl instead of causing real hurt to anybody. Still, check to the department or not, it felt like a waste.

Besides, he hated the dog and pony show.

“Martha Kane’s girl,” some socialite muttered behind Barbara. “Got all the looks, but none of the steel. You should have seen the way old Martha ripped up the city in her day - hounded everyone from the Mayor to the school boards. I hear she doesn’t even really run the company - leaves it all to Lucius Fox. Trust fund babies, darling. There’s no help for them.”

“She does some good...”  Barbara whispered before turning to the woman behind her.  “Did you read in the papers about Sergeants Hernandez and Joseph in the Narrows?”

They hadn’t, and she laid on the story like a pro. By the time she was done, they were writing out checks, and the Gotham City Police Department was a hundred thousand dollars richer. It was worth sneaking a glass of champagne and ducking into the bathroom to enjoy it alone, which was precisely what she did.

 _What would your father think, Barbara Gordon?  Committing a crime in the middle of a police fundraiser, with a dozen ranking members of the Force within a hundred feet._  Barbara smiled to herself, taking a long sip of her drink.   _Totally worth it._

Something shattered - big, glass, heavy - and people screamed, and there was something else too. The sound clicked in her brain, working like a key on tumblers, pulling up the association, and then it clicked again. Hard. _AK-47 on automatic._

Murder.  Death.  The sound of gunfire, the smell of powder and steel and screaming...  Barbara was moving before she thought things through - discarding her glass, stepping out of her shoes, gliding quickly to the door of the bathroom and cracking it to check the hallway outside.

There were two masked men in combat vests and gray cargo pants near the end of the hall, dragging an older man from the men’s restroom back toward the main ballroom, and another who seemed to be supposed to be checking the women’s room but distracted. She was ten, fifteen feet from the corner of the hallway. All of them were carrying automatic weapons. The sane, sensible thing was to step out with her hands up and let them escort her back to the room full of hostages they obviously had plans for. Lethal? Probably not - they didn’t move like she imagined committed terrorists would, and they were all watching each other as much as the man. Criminals, probably. Robbery would make sense as a motive.

 _The building’s floor plan is complicated..._  Barbara slid from the bathroom, her socks making no sound on the carpeted floor, and closed the door quietly.  She moved quickly along the wall, away from the men and around a corner, out of sight.   _Automatic weapons._  Her heart was pounding so loudly that it was a wonder, to her, that the criminals didn’t hear it, that it didn’t draw them all to her.

They tried to be thorough - that much was obvious - but this floor of the WayneTech building went on for what seemed like a mile of twisting, elaborate hallways, and they didn’t have enough men to do a good job. So they checked the likely spots, opened doors and swept flashlights over the room inside, and generally threw a net that would have been enough to catch any drunk socialite stumbling around looking for a private space to get laid or high.

When (if) she got out of this, Barbara was going to owe her sensei roses.

 _Get to a phone._  She cursed herself for leaving her mobile in her coat, which now rested in a closet somewhere near the ballroom - somewhere likely swarming with criminals now.   _Call Central.  Get the police here... with my father among the hostages, they’ll bring SWAT and whatever else they can muster.  They’ll be able to deal with these guys._  Barbara heard footsteps, ducked into a side hallway.

The steps approached, and she caught sight of the barrel of an assault rifle.  She crossed the hallway in which she was hiding quickly, so the man would have to pass her to see her.   _Can’t rely on him not looking this way.  Can’t get away down this hall fast enough to avoid being seen.  He sees me, he starts shooting, I die.  Only one way to get out of this..._

The man stepped past the corner, started to turn, to raise the gun.   _Only one.  They’re not professionals..._  The thought wasn’t done before Barbara moved, stepping into the man’s reach, past the barrel of the gun.  She struck quickly - an elbow to the bridge of the nose, a low hook kick the the back of his knee to bring his legs out from under him, a palm strike to the gut, a knee to the head. The man went down hard, gasping for breath, unable even to cry out before the rattle of his brain in his skull knocked him into unconsciousness. It was a perfect takedown - her sensei would have approved.   _Gun.  Something to use to keep them away, if I need it... not the AK.  Too big, too heavy, too deadly, too much recoil.  Never fired anything like it._  She looked the unconscious man over, her eyes stopping at his hip.   _Semiautomatic pistol.  Extended clip.  Utterly illegal under state law... for non-pros, these guys are loaded.  There’s something bigger happening here.  The gun’s perfect._  She dropped to one knee to retrieve the pistol.   _God... I’m in this deep.  Going to get out of it.  Going to keep my dad safe...._

The lighting in the hallway flickered and then died, only the ghostly blue of emergency strips in the ceiling casting any light at all, and her stomach dropped.

 _The power just went.  Don’t know why... the criminals or the cops, or maybe just a combination of eight straight years of cuts to public utility funding and the worst luck we could possibly be having here.  If it wasn’t the criminals, they’re now nervous, in the dark, and still armed with automatic weapons... ready to pull the triggers at the slightest provocation.  And now it’s only a matter of time until one of them thinks he’s been provoked.  I could leave.  I could get to the stairs and to the ground floor and out of here and they’d never know... but that would be leaving my father and Miss Wayne and her models and everyone else in there in danger._  She found an unlocked maintenance closet and slipped in, searching a toolbox for screwdrivers. _I need a screwdriver.  Get into the air ducts.  But, more than that... I need a miracle._

Someone racked the bolt of an AK-47 behind her. “Who’s there?” Male voice, lower-class Anglo accent, nervous. Short temper. Light flicked over her head, started back toward her. She tensed.

The light jerked upward, vanished, and there was a choked sound like all the air going out of someone’s lungs. The hard impact of a body against something tougher than flesh. A little whimper of pain.

A growl from the Pit whispered in the air behind her. “There’s a good boy. Now be very, very quiet and I might leave you the use of your arm.” Another whimper, and the growl went on. “Are you injured, Miss Gordon?”

Barbara poked her head out of the closet.  In the dim blue of the emergency lights she could make out the shape of the man pinned to the ground, almost entirely shrouded in the shadowy cape that spread across the floor like a tangible coalescence of darkness. Her eyes, adjusting to the emergency lighting again, picked out details  a few at a time- faintly glittering blue eyes in a cowl of dark cloth whose shape suggested concealed armor plating to match the more visible armor with integrated breathing system that covered the mouth. Heavily armored black gauntlet gripping the man’s arm at an agonizing angle, gray-black armor plating over some sort of flexible mesh covering what of the arm wasn’t hidden by the cape, chestplate in the same gray with a vividly stark, glossy black symbol across it. _The Bat._

 _I asked for a miracle and got a legend..._  Barbara stared at the Bat for a long moment, speechless, before finding her voice.  “I’m okay.  Not hurt.  But they’ve got hostages... my father, Miss Wayne.  And they’re nervous.”

“Miss Wayne is secure, the police have been contacted, and nervous is how I want them.” The Bat turned away from her and bent down to whisper in her captive’s ear, a horrible grating whisper that was almost loving. “And you’re going to tell me everything about ‘them,’ boy, because if you don’t...” the man choked on a scream that he couldn’t give voice with her fingertips compressing his vocal chords. “If you don’t, that’s your brachial plexus under my fingers, and I can give you the kind of pain that’ll wake you in the night screaming years from now, boy. I can cripple your arm so you’ll never be able to raise it again. I can break every bone in your miserable body and still leave you alive. Do you understand me, boy?”

His head jerked up and down, his eyes wildly terrified, and the Bat’s laughter shivered through the air like icy gravel being ground against itself. “Good. Now talk.”

He was very forthcoming.

_Eight professionals, twelve amateurs hired mostly for their ability to look tough.  At least it explains the gear... but ex-military or paramilitary... why would they be in the holding-up-the-wealthy game?  It’s not profitable, long-term, to hold up people who can hire someone to chase you to the end of the world when you’re done._

_And the Bat’s a woman.  Van Cleer was right... and more observant than Nigma._

The man whimpered, out of information and courage both, and the Bat put him out with a sharp shift of pressure points - dextrous, even through those armored gloves. Then she rose to her feet smoothly, cape coiling and swirling around her in a way that half-melted her into the shadows, and Barbara was sure. The motion was muffled by the cape, by the armor - which, fitted as it was, still concealed any sign of breasts beneath it - by the darkness, but it was a woman’s motion. A man wouldn’t have pivoted quite so easily at the waist.

“There are twelve of them still awake, including five of the professionals.” The Bat’s voice hissed in the dark, seeming almost a part of it as she began to move - silent as a ghost - down the hall toward the ballroom. “Their communications have been disabled, as well as the building’s power, but they are still well-armed. It would be wise for you to conceal yourself and wait for the police.”

“There’s nothing I can do to help?”  Barbara’s hand tightened on the screwdriver in her right hand, more put at ease by it than by the gun in her left.

“Nothing that would outweigh the risk to your safety.” Those blue-tinted eyes turned back to her, gazing into hers piercingly. “You can, however, give me the gun.”

Barbara handed her the gun.   _It’s... right.  I don’t know why.  I don’t have to._  “Here.  I’m going to find a room that I can lock from the inside... there’s a restroom down the hall, isn’t there?”

“Yes.” Those armored gauntlets stripped the weapon with effortless skill, ejecting the magazine and bending the feed-lip to jam any gun it might be inserted into, then snapping the slide all the way back off the top of the gun and removing the trigger assembly before discarding what remained. “The power will come back on when things have been secured, Miss Gordon. Until then, I suggest you take care of yourself.”

“I will.  Bat... woman?”  Barbara tilted her head.  “Vicki Vale calls you ‘The Bat-Man,’ but that’s not at all accurate.”

“No.” Even through the deep growling distortion of the voice, Barbara thought she heard a smile “I prefer ‘the Bat,’ personally. Now if you’ll excuse me, Miss Gordon, I have work to do.”

 _The Bat.  At least I’m already using that name in my paper._  Barbara slipped from the room.   _She’ll make it better... keep my father safe.  Keep everyone safe.  But... why were they in danger to begin with?_

It took ten minutes for the lights to come on, and five more before she was in her father’s arms, being held hard while he talked to the officers on the scene in that flat, level voice he used to control his emotions. Helen Wayne turned up tipsy and half-dazed in her panic room, complaining of being manhandled in the dark by some idiot in a cape. None of the hostages were injured beyond light bruising, and none of them were killed. Of the twenty armed robbers, nineteen were restrained and sported injuries ranging from broken bones to severe muscle strains and temporary nerve compressions. The twentieth was unrestrained, still had an AK next to him, and was hospitalized with a severe concussion.

If anyone knew that it hadn’t been the Bat who’d caused that last set of injuries, nobody gave Barbara Gordon any indications of it.


	2. Chapter 2

_One-tenth of one percent of her budget... but I think I did pretty well._  Barbara stood before the mirror, looking at herself with a small smile.  A midnight-blue hoodie, with the hood up to cover her hair, and a black domino mask ($8 at a party supply store) to hide her identity.  Reinforced dark blue spandex - hand-sewn to fit her perfectly - covered the rest of her body in two pieces, with a pair of leather gloves with small weights above the first knuckle of each finger, and a pair of black boots ($12 at a thrift store) would protect her feet while allowing her to move quickly.

It lacked the armor of the Bat’s outfit, and the active camouflage, and the integrated weapons and utilities and the grapple gun in the sleeves - though her belt had small pouches with a screwdriver, a set of lockpicks, and other useful tools, as well as a set of smoke bombs left over from the city’s firework display - but it would work.  It would keep her hidden in the dark, well equipped, and grant freedom of movement to fight.  And it didn’t look half bad on her, either.

And, hopefully, it would work once she was in the WayneTech building.

She removed the hoodie, gloves, and mask, and made her way to her closet.  She chose a white blouse and long skirt, putting them on over the spandex, and placed her mask, gloves and hoodie into her backpack.

There were at least ten different ways in the WayneTech building, most of them involving breaking and entering, but the easiest and most direct was to just walk in the front door and ask. It was risky, of course, because someone could easily tell her father and that was _not_ a conversation she wanted to have at this point, but it was much less risky than getting caught breaking in a window or something equally dramatic.

Fortune apparently did favor the bold, because the reception staff recognized her and invited her to come right in, even offered her a guide to go with her guest security pass.

 _A guide.  How do I ditch... ah._  “Excuse me, Mr. Rajib, but... I need to stop at the restroom.  If you could direct me there, I’ll find my own way.”

“Of course. Just around the corner on your left.” The young Indian man in the well-tended suit smiled a very winning smile and gestured to the small refreshment cart set up at a nearby corridor junction. “I will get you a cup of coffee while you tend to that?”

“That sounds good.”  She started toward the bathroom.  “And... there’s one other thing I’m going to need to do.”

“Oh?” He was pacing her, a few steps from peeling off toward the drink cart, but paused and flashed her a smile again when she indicated she needed something else.

“The ballroom.  I... would like to visit it alone.  Closure, you know?  After the thing with the men.”

“Of course.” He nodded at once, instantly sympathetic. “I’ll have to clear it with the building manager, but it shouldn’t be any trouble at all. I’ll call her while I’m waiting on the coffee.”

“Thank you.”  Barbara slipped off to the restroom - that hadn’t been entirely a lie - then returned to the beverage cart and took her coffee from Mr. Rajib.  “Did we get clearance?”

He smiled again, not a bit less charmingly. “We did. It’s in use at the moment for a research staff meeting, but will be free in half an hour. May I interest you in a tour of the labs while we wait?”

“Certainly.”   _Now this is worth taking a few minutes for... WayneTech labs?  I can’t possibly imagine what I’ll see there.  Now I kind of wish I had the ethics of that leather-clad burglar Montoya’s been chasing._

Thirty minutes later, she was absolutely certain that the reputation of WayneTech for being on the technological bleeding edge was completely deserved. Just on the one floor they toured - the public floor, she suspected - she’d seen improved laser technology being tested for surgical applications, materials research intended to develop a flexible rope or line of some kind with the tensile strength of spider silk and genetics research intended to improve the health and wellbeing of food animals bred in captivity (for better, leaner meat, her guide had explained).

 _Silksteel rope... that has to be what her grapple lines are.  Does she have a backdoor to Wayne technology, or was it developed separately elsewhere?  Is this another step into learning the Bat’s identity, or just a red herring?_ “Well... I imagine having the animal welfare people a bit more off their backs isn’t something the meat industry will argue with either.”

“Wayne Foods is already looking forward to having the product to move, I understand, though I think they’re a little optimistic on the timeline.” Rajib smiled and escorted her into the elevator. “I understand that Miss Wayne is particularly supportive of the project.”

“I’ve heard rumors that Miss Wayne is the closest thing to a vegetarian... doesn’t like the idea of her food being ‘tainted by cruelty,’ and doesn’t trust most of the meat industry.”  Barbara looked at the buttons.  “Thirty-second floor, right?”

“Yes.” He even let her push the button, politely enough. He also smiled - not the corporately charming one either, this time, but a really warm and laughing smile that suggested he might be trying to flirt with her. “Miss Wayne is... well, entirely off the record, Miss Wayne is a steak fanatic and is looking forward to having something she can eat with a clean conscience _and_ without offending her personal doctors any more than she already does.”

Barbara laughed.   _He’s flirting, and he’s obviously an all-right sort of fellow, which means his real goal is to charm me.  I have to admit, it’s working._  “I can’t imagine getting through life without an occasional really good steak, myself.  There are few pleasures I’ve found that quite match it.”

“One I cannot say that I’ve shared,” he sighed, though he was still smiling when he said it. “My mother would doubtless chide me if she even knew I was thinking about it.” The door opened, and he escorted her to the door of the ballroom with one more smile - this one serious, sympathetic, warm. “If you need anything at all, I’ll be here outside. Please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thank you.  I’ll come back as soon as I’m done in there.” _I don’t think I’m going to have to sneak about at all, here... but I definitely will the next place I’m going._  She walked quickly toward the ballroom - the only place she had not seen during or after the incident.

 _From the reports, they came in through the window.  The large one... there.  South end of the room.  The window’s still boarded up.  But some witnesses reported men entering through the east and west doors as well, which means they accessed the building through another route.  I was in the restroom one turn off the hallway out the west doorway, and they were patrolling those halls... perhaps covering an escape route._  Barbara moved to the boarded window, kneeling below it. _They’ve shampooed the carpet, removed every sign except the broken window.  But..._  She turned, moving toward the west door.   _The cleaners can’t have seen everything.  And in what they missed, I’ll learn more._

Something glittered in the wall by the door, mostly concealed by a large potted plant, but she caught it just out of the corner of her eye and turned to investigate. It was half-embedded in the softwood panel of the wall, a glitter of dark metal just barely peeking out, and it took her five minutes of hard work with the screwdriver to extract it, but when she had it and broke away the wood, it was unquestionably worth it.

About the width of her palm, a single piece of dark metal sharpened at the tips (five prominent, two minor), the whole of it ground into a shape highly suggestive of a bat. Of _the_ Bat.

 _A shuriken.  One of hers..._  Barbara ran her finger over the tips. _Sharp, but designed not to penetrate deeply unless thrown in a very specific way.  More useful for distraction, but it could deliver poisons or tranquilizers.  Or, I suppose, other drugs.  Good range, light weight.  I’m fairly certain it’s made of carbon fiber, and not steel._  She tucked the weapon into her bag.   _Weapon, distraction, and calling card, all in one.  The Bat certainly likes to keep things compact._

Something stopped her before she turned around to exit - intuition, maybe. She knelt down, took the police file back out of her backpack and went over the pictures again - not to refresh her memory, which was perfect, but looking for something she hadn’t seen before. Something she might have missed. _The room was full of hostages. Officers on site report gunfire directed toward the roof, cries of pain mingled with the crowd panic, starting from the rear west of the room...._ She stood up again, turned around slowly, frowned. _If the men watching these entrances were any good, even in the dark they should have had some warning, but all the gunfire went up. Nobody had time to spray automatic fire into the walls or into the crowd. And other than the window, there was no other sign of forced entry. So how did **she** get in, and how did she take out at least ten armed men in a room full of people before they had time to aim their weapons anywhere but the floor or ceiling? Even with night vision, in the dark, that ought to be impossible._

Barbara wasn’t going to answer those questions without more evidence, so she made her way into the corridors. _I need at least two entryways... one for the criminals and one for the Bat.  The Bat won’t leave much trace where she came in, and she’s more compact than them.  She could get in through a smaller route... and would probably know the building better, as well._

Four turns in, she found one of the things she was looking for.  A freight elevator, large enough for ten people, with access to the topmost floor of the building and a screw in place just under the access keyhole far newer than the rest of the controls.  She flipped the switch to stop the elevator, then drew her screwdriver and removed the plate under the keyhole.

A small black box had been installed in the wiring.   _RFID, processor.  It would let someone access the elevator without the key._  She turned the box over, finding a part number on the underside of its casing for the RFID reader.  She looked at the number for a long moment before replacing the plate. _I have one entrance route, and the next piece of information.  Now to find the Bat’s._

It took her forty-five minutes and a fair amount of avoiding people in the hallways to come to a conclusion that, on the face of it, made no sense at all: there wasn’t an entry route for the Bat that fit the facts. Windows secure, access from other floors showing no signs of her passage, and she’d come from _inside_ the security perimeter that Barbara had been avoiding, then somehow moved through into the ballroom without being seen or heard, bypassing the tight quarters of the west entrance.

Unless she could walk through walls, that made no sense at all.

_Possibilities, Babs.  Possibility one: I’m missing something.  Unlikely but possible.  Possibility two: Either she or the police or the building’s maintenance crews cleared the evidence I need.  More likely.  Possibility three: The Bat was already here.  Only one worth exploring, because it’s the only one I have any information to develop.  To be here, she’d have to be either staff or a guest.  But she wouldn’t be in her armor, which means the armor would have had to be here too.  It would have to be hidden away, which means she’d need access to hide it away.  A worker, then, high-ranked.  That narrows things down a lot... assuming that Possibility Three is true._

_I’ve learned all I’m going to here.  Time to move on._  Barbara started back toward the ballroom, then stopped and stared at the wall for a minute. Turned around, paced back and forth in the hall for a moment to measure it out with her stride, then stepped through the west door and walked from one end of the ballroom to the other, counting paces. Stopped. Turned around slowly.

_It’s bigger on the outside than on the inside._

Barbara began to run her hand along the wall, slowly, feeling for cracks, for openings, for hidden doors and accessways.   _The only reason to build a place like this is to be able to move through the walls... or store things in them.  Which only works if there’s a way to access those places..._

Ten minutes later, she hadn’t found a single entrance, but she had found a piece of plaster applied over a brace of bullet holes that gave way quite easily under her fingers... and which accommodated her arm all the way to the shoulder when she pushed through the bullet-riddled wall.

Cool, open space surrounded her arm.

 _A passageway.  And one they’re going to know was found..._  Barbara felt inside the hole, turning her hand to feel the wall of the passageway. _It’s not climate controlled... the cold is from being near the air conditioning vents.  And now I know where it is... the Bat could have come in through this, but that still requires her being able to put it there._  Barbara froze, a thought striking her that drove her to pull her arm from the hole and sink to sit on the floor.   _And the list of people who could do that is short.  Really, really short.  I’ll need to look at the Wayne Enterprises organizational chart again, but... Lucius Fox.  Thomas Powers._

_Helen Wayne._

_Which is the most preposterous thing I’ve ever came up with.  Impossible.  Fox must be siphoning off funds... funds by the millions.  It’s the only thing that makes sense.  Fox is funding the Bat.  Because the other possibility..._

She slowly pushed herself to her feet.   _Damn.  How long have I left Mr. Rajib waiting?_

An hour and seven minutes, her watch informed her.

 _Damn damn damn damn damn...._  She ran her fingers through her hair, mussing it, as she ran back toward the elevator, disheveling herself as best she could before slowing her run just in time to be walking at a normal pace when she came into his view.

“Miss Gordon.” Rajib rose from the bench beside the elevator and moved to her, his face struck with concern. “Are you alright?”

“Yes... I just... got a little obsessive.”  She gave him a small smile.  “Kept thinking that... that I should be able to see some of what happened in the room still.  That it couldn’t all be cleaned up that quickly... of course, it seems my obsessions underestimate WayneTech’s building maintenance.”

“We have good people. They worked overtime.” He reached out to rest his hand on her shoulder - carefully, but with genuine care. “Is there anything that I can do?”

“I think I’ll be okay.  I got my fretting done.”  She offered him a small smile.  “Thank you for your concern.”

“Of course.” He smiled back. “Would you think I’m horribly opportunistic if I offer to take you to lunch?”

“I...” _Why not?  Just a couple of hours.  Let the sun go down, and get food in your belly and some company._  “Sure.  We can get lunch.”

His smile was bright as mid-winter sunlight.

*********

_That was absolutely a date._  Barbara perched atop the police headquarters, staying out of the light of the moon.  M _y father would hate that.  Rajid is way too old for me... and I’m not sure he knows that.  I’ll have to tell him if he calls._  Her skirt and blouse remained in her backpack, stowed behind a dumpster at the Chinese restaurant a block away.  The bat-blade - her current name for the shuriken she’d found at the ballroom - was in a pouch at her belt.

She adjusted her mask before dropping from the roof through the window of Detective Allen’s office - a window often left open after long days of work.

_Files on the Bat.  Files on last night.  Physical evidence.  Something to disprove my hypothesis, because my hypothesis absolutely needs to be disproven.Report on ballistics found on the site, report from Miss Wayne on her rescue by the Bat before she could be forced to hand over funds._

Barbara knew the headquarters like the back of her hand - she’d grown up there, as much as she had in her father’s home.  She’d spent afternoons sneaking through the hallways, learning the place where her father did his work - his important, dangerous work.  Learning that having him - a man of unique courage and ethics - here so much was worth having him home so little.

That she often sacrificed her father to the good of Gotham.

Those afternoon explorations had led her to the file room for the first time when she was eight years old, and she’d figured out the rather arcane system by the time she was nine.  At twelve, she’d noticed the appearance of the new cabinet, the one made of good steel and with a top-end lock, where the crimes of the new “super-criminals” - and the reports of the costumed individual fighting them - were stored.

At thirteen, she’d picked that lock.

And now she needed to open the cabinet again.  It was surprisingly easy, a clever twist of the lockpick.  Two years had damaged the tumblers very slightly, requiring her to change the method of opening it, but she had it within a minute.

And that would get her Miss Wayne’s statement.

_HW: Right, right, right. Is the damn recorder working? Good. I’m missing a first-class play with two beautiful women to do this._

_CA: We’ll try to keep this brief, then, Miss Wayne, but it is necessary.  We can keep it shorter if you can tell me, in detail, what happened that night._

_HW: How much detail are we talking, Lieutenant Able? Because I had a very **busy** pre-party afternoon, and it’d be awkward if it ended up on Youtube. Again._

_CA: Detective Allen.  Your statement will remain confidential, unless it’s used in the prosecution.  And what we need starts with the arrival of the men with the guns._

_HW: Oh. Why didn’t you say so? I was standing with Commissioner Gordon, didn’t he tell you? He was telling my dates about chasing that Mister Icecube fellow. Then there were four, five men waving rifles of some kind close to us. Talking some kind of English, though I didn’t recognize half the words. Masks, bulletproof jackets._

_CA: Could you recognize the men in a lineup?_

_HW: Big men in mask look pretty much like big men in masks to me, Detective. Do people actually say yes about that?_

_CA: Occasionally.  What happened next?_

_HW: They shot their guns off into the air, shouted - I think there might have been more of them, but I was busy looking at the guns. Then four of them decided they wanted to talk with me in private and bodily hauled me out of the room. They dragged me into the meeting room at the end of the hall, tied me to a chair and started conducting what they drolly described as business negotiations._

_CA: They asked you for money._

_HW: Quite a lot of it. You can imagine I didn’t much like the idea, but I liked the thought of getting shot even less. Then the lights went out._

_CA: Could you see anything, with the lights out?_

_HW: Not a damn thing. But I could hear. The goddamn walls practically rattled._

_CA: What did you hear?_

_HW: People hitting the walls. I think. I don’t have much to compare it to. Then someone picked me up - I couldn’t see who, but they carried me by the damn chair - and carried me to the panic room. Slit the tape on my wrists, then sealed me in. It was the damned Bat, wasn’t it? I was sure he was a damned urban legend._

_CA: You can’t describe the person who carried you away?  No details at all?_

_HW: Detective Allen, have you ever been carried through a hallway lit only by emergency lights while tied to a chair?_

_CA: Can’t say I have, but I’ll take that as a no.  And you stayed in the panic room until the police arrived?_

_HW: Of course I did. There were men with guns and a madman in a bat costume out there._

_CA: All right... that’s all I need for now.  I’ll call you if we need more.  Thank you for your time, Miss Wayne._

Barbara put the file back in the cabinet.   _Nothing there I need for the criminals... but..._  She sighed.   _She’s trying too hard.  Much too hard.  It’s little things... but nobody really talks like that.  Nobody knows that little.  And anyone with the privilege she has would be either in shock or pissed enough to demand blood to have that privilege invaded the way those men did.  She’s acting, and doing it well... giving people what they expect.  But it’s not real. That, or she's even more eccentric than she seems...._

The next file - on the arrests - gave her more information.  Names, birthdates, criminal records.  The men listed Cecilio Batista as their leader, but his record didn’t bear that out.  He was a thug, not a soldier, and it showed.

The leader of the attack had been Andre Volkov.  Russian-American, ex-Navy Seals, discharged for carrying opium in his duffel on the way back from Afghanistan.  Sniper and strategist, knew at least a dozen ways to kill a man.  The Bat had taken him down, just like the rest, and he was sitting in Blackgate.

She had the unit he’d served with in Afghanistan, the name of the drug lord he’d been making deliveries for.  It was time to look into one last thing - the black box from the elevator.

**********

If she was going to do this, the shadows had to be her friends.  She had to become intimate with them, able to slip from one to another without being seen, and to see what was hidden within them.  She’d already seen more than she wanted to... hookers and johns slipping into alleys, drug deals going down.  Nothing worth risking her life to stop, not when there was more important work to do.  And none of them noticed her.

One of the few undamaged streetlights on Fred Cobblepot III Road shone brightly ahead, and Barbara slipped into the alley leading to Fifty-Eighth Street to avoid it. Her eyes readapted to the dark as she sheltered under a fire escape, tracking another dealing walking back to his corner from the late-night pizza stand, and then something - a sudden chill - made her turn her head and look behind her.

Something blacker than the night loomed in the alleyway behind her.

 _What the..._  Barbara took two steps toward the object.   _Holy mother of Bullwinkle..._

It was possible, if one was being exceedingly generous, to describe it as a car. That was the impression the low, sleek, heavy machine with broad-swept fins conveyed, at least, though at the moment the heavy layer of black metal armor which encased much of it muffled the lines so thoroughly that she almost didn’t recognize it as the vehicle several of her father’s patrol officers had described gliding past them on the highway at night, unlit, silent as a ghost.

That’s her car.  Barbara walked closer to the car, rubbing her eyes through the mask.   _Armored enough to block bullets.  Those are jet intakes on the front... I’m a little scared to think how fast this can go.  And..._  she ran her fingers slowly over the dark body of the car, _is that a stealth coating?_

The car _growled_.

 _I made it angry... wait, that doesn’t make sense._  Barbara took a step back.   _That’s meant to discourage people from interfering with the car.  It’s probably also informed her that it was touched, which means she’ll be back here soon to check on it... but shouldn’t it kee?  Don’t bats kee?_

“If you touch her again,” the voice out of the darkness on the second floor fire-escape across from her hissed, “you’ll get quite a jolt. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”  Barbara turned her head toward the voice.   _Think of the Devil, and she comes._  “Hello, Bat.”

“Miss Gordon. Isn’t it a little late for a school night?” The shadow detached itself from the wall, whispering across the fire escape, then dropped effortlessly to the asphalt next to Barbara with barely a muffled thud to acknowledge the impact of that armored weight.

“I’m not sure... haven’t checked my watch in a bit.  But shouldn’t you be on at least one date right now?”   _Please let her give me a blank look at that please let me be wrong._

“I don’t date.” The unforgiving white lenses embedded behind the fabric of the cowl looked at her with a pitiless, unreadable attention for a moment before turning away from her. “I lack the time or the interest.”

“You certainly seemed interested at the party.”  Barbara walked to the car again, keeping a foot of distance between herself and it as she slowly circled it.  “And when you talked with Lieutenant Able.”

“There is no Lieutenant Able in the Gotham City Police.” The Bat moved to the left side of the car and rested her hand against the armor plating, which rapidly segmented and retracted to reveal the cleaner lines of the vehicle beneath. The mirrored glass canopy was large and broadly curved  - enough to accommodate several seats - and the roof behind it slid backward with a soft hiss of releasing air to expose the … cabin? Cockpit? Was there even a word for this thing’s insides? The Bat vaulted the side of the vehicle effortlessly, cape flaring out around her, and then settled into the driver’s seat. “I have work to do. I’ll drop you at home.”

“Did you find the black box, in the freight elevator controls?  I was on my way to do some research on it.”  Barbara reached into her backpack for her blouse before using the body of the car to push herself into a seat.  “Part number A24FD89.  RFID scanner.  Spliced into the line very recently.”

“Compromised in the original factory lot by an employee of the supplier with a history of gambling debts.” The roof slid closed over them, sealing them in, and the lights dulled to a deeper red as the massive engine of the car hummed to life, gliding them out onto the street and drawing frightened eyes from the dealers who abandoned their corners as though a pack of wolves were at their heels. They accelerated smoothly despite the weight of the car - it had to be at least four tons, maybe five, maybe more - and out of the corner of Barbara’s eye she could see the ghostly flicker of illegible images projected against the canopy. _Holographic HUD. State of the art._ “The employee has since disappeared. Suggestive.”

“There are also secret passages in the Wayne building, though I expect you knew that.  I don’t think anyone without my memory would have found them... I remember the feeling of each step I take touching the floor.  The gunmen got in using the freight elevator.  You got to the panic room using the passages.”

“I brought Miss Wayne to the panic room using the corridor - the tunnels would not have accommodated us both. I used the passages to access a hatch in the ceiling of the ballroom to enable my takedown of the remaining robbers.” The Bat adjusted the car’s throttles - no visible gearshift, so definitely a jet turbine of some kind - and turned up Grove. “I have passages in every major public and corporate building in Gotham for precisely such an eventuality.”

“Not in the police headquarters.  I’d have noticed if the walls were too thick.  Then again... the police headquarters have been in the same building, and haven’t been renovated, since long before you came onto the scene.”  Barbara looked to the Bat.  “You saved my father... I think a lot of times.  Thank you.”

The Bat didn’t bother to confirm her analysis was correct - the subtle nod of her armored head was sufficient. “He’s a good man.” Even through the growl of the vocal distortion, there was a hint of real emotion in the woman’s voice. “Honest and honorable. A hero. Gotham needs him.”

“It does.”  Barbara fell quiet for a moment.  “I think I know who you are, under that hood.  I won’t tell anyone, and I’m not certain.  But... I thought you should know.”

The Bat said nothing for what seemed like a long time - six blocks and three turns - and then the car hissed softly to a stop in the shadows of the Turnmarsh Cemetery. It was a five minute walk from here to home, and she half-expected the canopy to hiss open to admit her departure without another word from the armored woman who controlled this impossible machine.

“What are you doing out here, Miss Gordon?” the Bat growled softly.

“Trying to help.  These people... they threatened my father.  They threatened Miss Wayne, and all the other guests.  If I hadn’t happened to have been in the restroom at just the right moment, I’d have been a hostage just like everyone else was.  And the thing is, it didn’t make any sense.  The risk-reward ratio is too great.  Even if they got access to somebody’s bank account... unless they were planning to go straight to spending the money, they’d be cut off from draining it before they got enough to make it worth threatening both the Commissioner of Police and nearly a hundred people who have enough security to build their own small private armies.”  Barbara shook her head.  “And I need to know why.  And I need to know they won’t do it to someone else.  And I can do that.”

“I don’t require your help, Miss Gordon. I will settle Volkov’s backers and solve the mystery of his motives. If that is your concern, lay it to rest.” The Bat reached for the control panel, and Barbara knew on instinct that if she flicked the switch to open the canopy, the conversation would be over.

“Then there’s the next one, and the one after that.  The next thing, bigger, with more details to collect before learning the truth.  This isn’t just your city... my family’s shed blood and sweat trying to keep these streets safe, trying to give people hope.  I’m a Gordon... the danger isn’t going to stop me.  I think I can do better with you than on my own, but if need be, I’ll keep working on my own.  After Volkov’s dealt with, I’ll keep going.  Because I see the same things you do - a police department with too few good people who have too few resources, too many criminals with too much ambition, and a world that seems utterly determined to dump all its worst on us, no matter how little sense it makes.  I want my city back... and I want my father to, at least once in a very great while, come home and fall asleep without the latest corpse stuck on his mind.”

“What I do is dangerous. The latest corpse could be you, one night.” The Bat’s hand stopped, withdrew to the control yoke again, and those white lense eyes gleamed red in the dull light of the car.

“I know.  But I’m careful, quick, and smart... smarter than anyone else I’ve ever met, except you.  Who else is there that’s qualified to help you, if I’m not?  And the fight isn’t going to be won by you and Robin alone... there are too many problems, each of which demands too much time.  Adding a third won’t win the war either, but it will be a start.  And, as I said, I’m not going to stop.”

“If I say I’ll think about it,” the Bat murmured in a way that her voice modulator turned into a low rumble, “will you stay off the streets until I make my decision?”

“Until I’m convinced you’re not actually considering it at all, and are simply not telling me I’ve been turned down to keep me off the streets.  But... as a gesture of goodwill, I’ll take a few days to analyze data I’ve assembled.  My phone, by the way, is encrypted... if you find anything you want a second set of eyes on, you can send it.  I’m sure you know the number.”

“Of course.” The Bat studied her another moment, then reached for the control for the roof again. “You have my word I will give it all the consideration it deserves, Miss Gordon.”

“Very well.”  Barbara nodded to the Bat, reaching to push herself out of the car.  “One more question... does the button with the wings on it actually take the car off the ground?”

“Yes.” There might have been the hint of a crushed-gravel chuckle in the Bat’s voice. “Violently. Please control any desire you might have to push it.”

“I’ll only push it if you tell me to.  I trust your driving.”  Barbara winked.

“Thank you.” The Bat reached for the canopy switch again. “Good night, Miss Gordon.”

“Good night.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a year since we first posted in this story, so I thought I ought to let you all know that Tia and I have been missing this fic. Her work schedule's been rough for a good while, so we haven't had much opportunity to write together, but we have a batch of new chapters for Batgirl that we hope you're going to enjoy. :)

_This one is simple, apart from the time requirement to show my work._  Barbara had moved the data on the Nigma case from her phone to her computer - an encrypted thumb drive, to be exact, with the data never passing through the unencrypted primary hard drive in the process - to work with it on a larger screen.  She had it laid out as a flow chart, evidence flowing into reasoning flowing into conclusions, and it all lead, via the sort of roundabout route Edward Nigma could not resist sending information through, to one idea - Carmine Falcone had attempted to pay off a few of Nigma’s Fixers without going through the Riddler himself, depriving him of his fee, and he was in the process of exacting his revenge - or sending a message; with Nigma, the two looked very similar and might actually be the same thing - by creating roadblocks to Falcone’s efforts at expanding his criminal empire in the form of high-caliber ammunition.

Her phone buzzed with a text.

 _What the..._  Three days in, and she’s already grown used to the Bat-symbol appearing on her phone in place of a number, and with a large packet of data encrypted into an MMS message, but this was new - rather than the outline of a bat, what she was looking at was a yellow circle around a stylized R.

 _Robin._  She opened the message.

_So, Mrs. Gladden, finished with the Riddler case yet? I’m getting itchy feet, and some Fixer’s probably getting an itchy trigger finger._

She smiled softly at the message, typing in response.   _Won’t the Boss disapprove of you hanging out with me?  I understand she hasn’t decided if I’m all right yet._

The R popped up again, the message typed swiftly enough that it must have been sent from a full keyboard. Nobody had thumbs that fast. _She thinks you’re just fine on thinking. She’s just convinced you’ll get shot and then she’ll have to tell your dad. But she doesn’t have to know I’m texting, does she?_

_I know Riddler’s hiding something important in a warehouse at Sixth and Oswin.  If I’m asked to be backup, I can’t exactly turn it down._

_Back-up, I don’t need. But if you give me the details, I’ll throw something better in for you than more case files. Promise._

“Drat.”  She spoke the word aloud before typing again.   _Something Falcone brought into town, bought from Bruno Mannheim but of terrestrial origin.  Not a weapon... probably a piece of pirated tech from Starr Labs, it sounds like.  Something to sell.  Riddler grabbed it from him... they killed three of Falcone’s men and left one alive and permanently disabled to tell the story.  But security’s been light... Nigma seems to think it’s safer to avoid attention to the hiding place than to have heavy security in place.  Three Fixers stationed there, two more rotated in and out.  I don’t know their schedule.  What do I get?_

A pause - long enough for surprise - and then a short text. _You figured all that out from your desk?_

_Not too difficult.  It involved watching patterns of Fixer movement, motion of money between criminal organizations, understanding Falcone’s odd mix of daring and conservatism - he wouldn’t bring in Apokalyptan technology for any dollar amount short of what a Wayne or Kane can assemble, and those aren’t families in the habit of buying evil alien artifacts.  And putting together information my father’s brought home with what the Bat’s cameras have assembled.  And remembering everything.  Having it in my head so I can connect it right._

_Not too difficult. Right._ The next text popped up before she had a chance to respond to the implied compliment. _I’m going to get air under me. Check behind the broken angel in Turnmarsh tomorrow night, and don’t tell her you got it from me._

 _I’ll do that._   _You take care.  And text me when you’ve dealt with them..._ She considered, then added the rest of the thought.   _So I know you’re safe._

 _I’ll send pictures,_ he promised.

Barbara set the phone aside, humming as she returned to data assembly.   _I’ll know more when Robin captures the tech from Nigma... that might fill in the last few blanks here.  The little things that, with Nigma, might not be little at all._

She had pictures by three in the morning, including mugshots of four beat-up Fixers, but the best part came the next night just a little after sundown. It took ten minutes to find the broken angel and another four to find the cylinder hidden behind it. Sneaking it into the house was a little tricky, but not impossible, and figuring out the puzzle lock on the cylinder would have been quick and fun if she hadn’t been so impatient to get it open already. Once she did though, it was _entirely_ worth it.

 _Oh, this is the best thing ever._  Barbara started unpacking the cylinder from the top - a suit of black body armor, using the kevlar weave that the under-layer of the Bat’s suit was made of, fitted to her.  Mask, armored, with built-in night vision and heads-up display.  A small case of the Bat’s shurikens, perhaps twelve altogether.

And, the best part of all - a grapple gun with four extra gas canisters.

 _I’m going to test this out now.  I’m going to..._  Barbara paused, sighed.   _Keep my promise.  Stay off the streets.  But not much longer..._

She pulled out her phone, accessed Robin’s messages.   _Best.  Present.  Ever._

 _Glad you like it._ His smiley was custom, a little grinning face with a green mask over the eyes. _Even better, I can tell you where to test it out._

_Oh, please, do tell.  I’m itching to try it on.  Literally.  Not sure how that happened._

_It’s the adrenaline. Don’t ask me how it works. Anyway, there’s a construction site at Upper Lake and Buckland. It’s uptown, way outside the turf of any gangs you have to worry about, and the cameras in the area are down because they’re ripping up the mains and electrical grid under there and she didn’t want anyone stumbling on a live feed. Just don’t wear it there and back, k?_

_All right, I can do that.  See you there?_  Barbara was already finding a way to pack the armor into her bag.

Her phone trilled back almost immediately. _It’s a date._

Barbara laughed quietly, pocketing her phone and managing to get the grapple gun into the side pocket of her bag.  Everything packed away, she shouldered the bag, grunting at its somewhat surprising weight.

Without the grapple gun, the quickest way for her to get to the site was bicycle.  Bicycle, with a Bat-suit in her backpack.

She somehow doubted the Bat ever rode a bike.

* * *

 _How long will it take her to decide?_  Barbara executed a triple flip as she withdrew her grapple line, firing the next at a rafter to her left, using it as a fulcrum to turn her momentum smoothly.   _I don’t want to wait any more.  I don’t want to be sidelined.  This is my work... I can do it.  She tricked me.  I know now... she tricked me._  She released the line again, shifting her body to slow her flight and allow a safe landing on a wide support beam.   _I want to be out there._

“You’re getting better.” A bright red, green, yellow and black bundle of energy dropped onto the beam above her, balancing himself smoothly on the lightly armored green titanium-kevlar of his gauntlets, then backflipped along the line of the beam until he came to rest leaning up against the main support pillar a few yards away. “Still a little slow, but better. How’re the batarangs coming?”

“Well.  Though I’m suffering a lack of moving targets.  I’m down to a three-inch target at twenty feet, six-inch at fifty.”  Barbara raised her arm, fired the grapple gun straight up, and used it to flip herself onto the main support for the next floor of the building.

“When you’re down to half an inch at twenty on a stationary, let me know. I’ll find you something harder.” He bounced restlessly in place, using the beam under him as the foundation for a handstand, then a swing and release move that revolved him around the bar like a yo-yo. “Adjusted to the suit yet? I got you the light version, like mine - she wears heavier gear, but it slows her down and I don’t know how she stands lugging it around all night.”

“I don’t know how she moves as quietly as she does in armor that heavy... as far as I’ve seen, sound dampening can only do so much.  Yet I can’t hear her until I’m close enough for breathing, and her breathing is quieter than it should be too.”  Barbara started to quickly make her way up the building, toward the topmost floor with a frame in place, nearly twenty stories above her. He was right behind her, bouncing and swinging from frames, barely using his zip-line or his grapple gun.

“I don’t know how she does it, either. It’s not tech - I’ve seen her do it in the stripped-down version she uses for really heavy stealth work, too. Some of her teachers had to be really scary people, is all I’m saying.”

“Must have been.”  Barbara finally landed at the pinnacle of the building, perching on a vertical steel beam.  “She’s so angry when she works...”

“She’s always angry.” Picking a beam near hers to balance on, he looked out over the city. It was a subtle change, but something in his expression gave away the sudden tension that settled on his slim shoulders. “Sometimes she just hides it better than others.”

“She... doesn’t seem to understand why I would want to do this.  When I’m not angry.”  Barbara leapt to the next beam.

He turned to look at her, his eyes narrowing behind the mask - she could see it in the set of his face. “To be honest, Gladden, neither do I.”

“She’s made me explain more than once.”  Barbara leapt down to a more comfortable place to stand.  “I’m a little tired of doing so.”

“Did I sound like I was asking?” He dropped down with her, landing on the work-platform and giving her a crooked smile. “Because I wasn’t. She doesn’t get it, and she’s a control freak, so that bothers her. I don’t get it, either, but I don’t need to. Your reason is your reason, mine is mine.”

“Thank you.”  Barbara smiled to him.  “And thank you for getting me out of the house... I was going crazy.  Still am, a little, but it’s better now that I’m out here.”

He smiled back like a sixteen year old kid, then sobered up and looked at her hard - serious face. “If she says yes - and you’re not good enough yet for that, but you could get there - she’s not going to put you right out on the street. There’s going to be training. You need to get used to that.”

“I understand.”  Barbara dropped off the support, just holding herself up by the lower part of the beam with her hands.  “Oof.  You’re an acrobat.”

“It helps.” He grinned, shadow instantly forgotten. “You’re a gymnast. It shows. I guess it’s kind of the same thing, but less cool.”

Barbara nodded, face showing strain from the effort of holding herself up and still by the uncomfortable beam.  “Since I was four.  I’ve always done my best thinking while I was moving.  Staying home was, I think, about halving my IQ.”

“Same with me. I think better in the air. Want to drive me as crazy as Two-Face? Tie me to a chair for a few hours.” He watched her, still smiling, though a little concern stole in around the edges of his mouth. “Or make me ride shotgun in the Batmobile for a whole night, for that matter.”

“Batmobile, eh?”  Barbara finally pulled herself up and sat atop the beam to catch her breath.  “Not quite at my record, but I’ve been swinging around a lot today.  I hope ‘tied to a chair’ isn’t a regular thing for you.”

“Escape artist training. She likes to keep the curriculum comprehensive.” His smile turned lopsided. “Though come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time it was a chair, or ropes, or rightside up.”

“What were you tied to last time?”  Barbara could imagine a dozen positions to be tied in and at least five sorts of restraints, but, for some reason, nothing but chairs was coming to mind as places to be bound.

“The front end of a train. Triple-wrap chain, six locks in three different designs, two of them wired into grenade pins if they opened all the way.” He caught her expression and chuckled. “What?”

“And that’s all?  No vat of acid?”  Barbara raised an eyebrow.

“No, that’s on Tuesdays.” He shrugged casually. “Alternating with the shark tank.”

“What kind of sharks?”

“Great whites, with lasers on their heads.”

“Do any of them have Hitler’s brain?”  Barbara giggled.

He kept his face totally deadpan, which had to be an accomplishment. “Only two. We were hoping for more, but the manufacturer went out of business.”

“A manufacturer for Hitler’s brain?”  Barbara started to laugh.  “Where did they advertise?”

“Madman’s Monthly. We subscribe, but only for the classifieds.” Robin was grinning now, but he hadn’t started to laugh yet.

“Is that what Jeremiah Arkham keeps in his waiting room?  Next to Psychosis Quarterly and American Sociopathy Journal?”

That set him off, finally, and he sat down hard on the work platform and laughed until it hurt. Barbara laughed with him, spending a good few minutes on it, and by the time they were done, her sides ached. It was a good night.


	4. Chapter 4

Two weeks after her sixteenth birthday, Barbara Gordon thought there might be a very real chance that she was going to go mad. Thirteen days exactly - or thirteen nights, rather - had passed since she’d last seen a bat or a stylized R on her phone, and she’d done her Buckland construction site training in acrobatics, endurance, grapnel swinging and shuriken throwing in a silent solitude that was made so much worse by the absence of Robin’s jokes and bright, boyish laughter.  Yet she continued her work, lost herself in it, lost the fear that they had abandoned her, or worse, in the exertion of training.  She was growing better by the day, by the hour.  But every day that her skills improved, her heart and hope hollowed out just a little further.

It was very nearly midnight and she was half-asleep in her bed, curled around her phone and still sore from four hours in the gym earlier in the day and jiujitsu practice on top of that, when her phone buzzed against her fingertips. She almost dismissed it - her hopes had risen to the level of psychosomatic vibrations on more than a dozen occasions over the past week - but hope sprang eternal in the chest of Barbara Gordon.  She roused herself and pressed her fingers to the phone to activate the screen.

 _The alley at Mercer. Ten minutes._ The text on it was crisp and compact, but it came after the symbol of the Bat.

She pushed herself from the bed as fast as she ever had, pulled her gear on, and was out the window in less than a minute.  She had to move faster across town than she ever had by grapnel, and she soared.  She arrived with nearly sixteen seconds to spare.

The car was waiting for her, a black blot of subtly vibrating metal that blended into the shadows of the alley, its engine whisper-silent as it idled. When she drew close enough to touch it, the armored curve of the roof slid back from the canopy and invited her into the dull red glow of the interior. Both seats were empty.

Barbara regarded the car for a moment, skeptically.   _No driver.  Or am I supposed to... no.  She wouldn’t let me drive.  Not in a million years.  Not for a million dollars.  Not if I..._  Best not to continue that line of thought.

The car growled impatiently.

 _Right.  It’s going to be driven by remote._  Barbara jumped in, reaching for the harness to strap herself in. _Least reckless thing I’ve done while outside at night in months._ The cockpit slid closed around her, sealing her in, and the seat beneath her shifted and adjusted itself to make her more comfortable as the car rumbled near-silently around her and glided out into the street. For a few minutes, she watched the city lights and the other vehicles around her as it glided through the shadows, shifting lanes smoothly to avoid the handful of working streetlights, passing so near to cars that it seemed they _must_ notice it and then gliding by unseen. Then the canopy polarized, going dark and opaque, and there was only the sense of motion and the soft red glow of the inactive instruments around her. It was an otherworldly sensation, like being suspended in the heart of a great mechanical beast and watching it move around her.

She leaned forward, brushing her fingertips over a small, Bat-shaped blue-white light near the center of the dashboard.  Everywhere else, there were buttons, knobs, touch-pads, instruments displaying data, but this tiny, dim light - so slight she might not have noticed it if not cut off from the lights outside - alone served no purpose.  No purpose, except perhaps what that spotlight her father had placed on the roof of Central served to the people of Gotham.  A reminder of the light in the darkness. _The Batmobile has a nightlight._

The car glided to a stop at last, the roof opening again above her to let her out, and she had climbed out the car and put her feet on the ground before she looked up and her legs nearly gave way under her.

There was a cave in Vietnam she’d seen pictures of whose primary chamber ran five kilometers through the earth, towering two hundred meters from floor to ceiling and a hundred and fifty meters across. It was impossible, some small and rational voice in the back of her mind insisted, that this cave could be larger than that. Completely, absolutely impossible. Her eyes and the clenching, aching terror in her belly refused to believe her. They were both convinced that it must go on and on forever, to some other world down in the dark depths of the Earth where they bred hunters like the woman who had made Gotham by night her personal dominion.

Her home - something in Barbara’s chest told her that this place could be nothing else - wound itself up and down the natural walls of the cave, one floor after another, some extending dozens of meters to form open-walled ‘rooms’ and others narrowed to a slim walkway clinging to the stone of the wall. Still others jutted out over the central abyss, supporting platforms which stood empty or held great metal shapes that in the jagged shadows cast by the stark lighting she could barely guess at the nature of. Glass cases lined one ‘room’ nearby, holding priceless antique armors from a dozen cultures and as many centuries, while on a floor above them there was a penny the size of the lobby of the Gotham Central Precinct and a bit further down and to her left she could see what looked for all the world like a life-sized model of a Tyrannosaur, complete with a modern paleontologist’s theory of possible feathering.

She gaped.  That was the only sane response - to lean back against the solid metal of the car and stare at the vastness and the strangeness of the place.  Even if one of Gotham’s deadliest psychopaths found it, she thought, it would defeat them, for wonder would crush their violent urges, and they would throw themselves before the Bat, begging for mercy from the sheer enormity of her home. Then, above her, something moved in the dark. Not one something, but a hundred. A thousand. More.

Bats. The vast, jagged array of stalactites that hung down from the ceiling above her like an endless array of knives were _alive_ with bats.

 _And if wonder didn’t leave them helpless, the bats would chase them away._  Finally, Barbara let go of the car and took a few steps, keeping her posture low to make totally sure not to disturb the sleeping animals.  “Hello?”

“Hello, Barbara.” The low, crushed gravel growl of the Bat’s voice spoke from behind her, though she’d heard no sign of anyone’s approach, and she nearly jumped out of her skin as she wheeled around. The armored shadow stood on one of the two slim bridges extending away from the platform which the car - and Barbara - presently occupied, the one which led toward the football field-sized segment of metal flooring that seemed to be the primary annex (on this layer, at least). Her long cape hung around her like a mantle, obscuring almost everything that her cowl and armored lower face-plate did not, but the glossy bat symbol on her armored chestplate still managed to catch the light and gleam. So did the blue-white tinted lenses that served as the mask’s eyes.

The effect nearly buckled Barbara’s knees again before she found her nerve.

“You really do live in a cave...”  Barbara tried for wry, but only got wonder.   _The word cave doesn’t really cover this.  Cavern?  No... I have no idea what this ought to be called, but cave isn’t it.  Caves aren’t... majestic._

A low, resonant, hissing laugh spilled through the Bat’s audio-distortion mask as she turned away, waving a single gauntleted hand for Barbara to follow. “Robin calls it the Batcave.”

 _Batcave.  Nice ring.  Catchy.  Still too small.  I can’t think of a better name._  “What do you call it?”

“Home.” They passed off the bridge and between the gallery of armors and weapons, the tools of warriors long gone to dust, then beneath a great metal arch that reinforced the cavern ceiling and into another shock. Spread out around them, half-hidden beneath the dim lights, gleamed the finest array of scientific and forensic instruments Barbara had ever seen or imagined. It would have made the professor of her summer criminology course weep for joy to see it, and the Bat glided among them as though they were familiar scenery. _Home furnishings,_ some stray remnant of wit cracked from the back of her mind.

 _She lives this.  Whatever she is when she isn’t wearing the cowl, this is her reality.  The other thing is the mask._  “I’m fairly certain that civilian ownership of that particular genetics scanner is a class 2 felony, on account of the uranium.”

“So is running one’s own hydro-electric plant and nuclear pile,” the Bat replied, a hint of amusement leaking through the growl. “And while not technically illegal, a two hundred million calculation per clock cycle supercomputer would not precisely be looked on with favor by the authorities.”

 _Two hundred million..._  “So you can play the world’s best game of Tetris.”   _I absolutely have to get my hands on the keyboard of that thing..._

“Something like that.” She’d amused the Bat again. It was coming to be a bit of a habit. They turned away from the laboratory equipment, crossing a full-scale metal shop and an open area obviously meant for training or simply pacing, and then up a small dais of stairs to the great, multi-screened interface of what was obviously the computer. The Bat rested a gauntleted hand against it, and spoke in a clear crisp voice that carried in the room. “The word of the day is Pearls. Screen on, display the map.”

 _Complying_ appeared on the central screen above her in great green letters, and then the city of Gotham spilled across it - a real-time computer model, visibly updating constantly with police reports and camera takes and what had to be system-level access to every municipal database and monitoring system.

 _The amount of data sifting that must be going on, to make this system work.  To not overwhelm the user with data._  “That’s what the lenses in your cowl are.  Heads-up display, linked to this system through a high-speed data link.  4G, or have you developed quantum entanglement to go along with the fastest supercomputer outside the Lexcorp campus?”

“It has several data transfer systems.” Was it her imagination, or was there a note of surprise in the voice under that distortion? “And yes, it’s one of several things that link to my HUD. Good deduction, Miss Gordon.”

“Lenses fog up, get in the way and fail.  Having them available for shielding your eyes when needed is a good thing, but they would need constant utility for you to have them engaged all the time.”  Barbara brushed her hand over one of the work surfaces.  “What’s with the penny?”

“You don’t recognize it?” If Barbara didn’t know better, she would have suspected she was being teased.

“It looks similar to the penny from the Gotham Mint, but the year is wrong, and that penny was melted down...”  Barbara considered, rapping her fingers on the table slowly.  “There was another giant penny that Two-Face made at the docks, for really momentous decisions, but it fell into the harbor and was determined irretrievable, and was year-stamped 2002 and had Harvey Dent’s face on the Heads side.  Then there was the Prankster... I never saw the head side of the Prankster’s penny, but it rolled over the tracks when the Treasury was moving the gold stockpile.”  She blinked.  “You have the Prankster’s giant penny.”

“I have the Prankster’s giant penny.” There was that thread of amusement again, rich and gently self-mocking. “It seemed... novel.”

“Except for all the other giant pennies before it.”  Barbara laughed.  “Does it ever strike you how... absurd... Gotham is at times?”

“Often. I find it strangely comforting.” The Bat tapped the console beside her twice, and the computer shut down the displays with a soft hum. “It’s as though she’s trying to remind us that not everything needs to be greeted with the severity it deserves.”

“Is that part of how you keep to your rules?”  Barbara walked to the computer, brushing her fingers over the keyboard.

Those lensed eyes watched her for a moment, studying her, and then the Bat turned away and descended the stairs again, her voice echoing in the emptiness of the room. “What are my rules, Miss Gordon?”

“No killing is the first, and most important.  Also the most obvious... it was what made me think you had rules.  Control of property destruction.  No deals.  No guns, of any sort.  And saving lives comes before catching the bad guy.”  Barbara folded her hands together.  “Hurting the bad guy is entirely acceptable, but only as necessary to save lives.”

“Or when they’re punks who need a lesson and might benefit from learning it painfully,” the Bat growled, half-turning to look at her, and she thought there might have been a hint of a smile in that voice. “Robin doesn’t approve of that exception. I value him for that.”

“I was going to say... he didn’t mention that bit.”  Barbara turned around, toward the Bat, leaning back against the computer desk.  “I’m amazed how many people think you kill criminals... you didn’t kill the Joker, and, if there’s anyone in the world who’s always going to be a psychotic murderer, it’s him.”

The voice under that digital audio mask turned hard and cold, like a thing of icy gravel, and it might very well have frightened her more to hear it than the grating, inhuman snarl that first night in the dark. “That man isn’t psychotic. Not merely psychotic, at least. Never underestimate him by thinking that he is.”

 _No, not merely a psychotic, but defined by psychosis.  He’s a monster of the mind... my father described him, not as the stuff of nightmares, but of their source given form and voice.  He’s what you get when the raw power of the human mind is turned to madness and evil, focused entirely on those things, an obsession like a burnt-out addict’s focus on their drug.  He’s an impossibility._  “I understand.”

“Good.” The Bat stood there in the pooled shadow at the base of the stairs, watching her for what felt like a long time, and then gestured for her to follow as she turned away. “We will begin evaluating your training tonight. If you wish to join Robin and I in our work, there will be considerable time and effort involved. Do you understand?”

“I understand.  I think I’ve shown a great deal of willingness to put forth effort and work.”  Barbara smirked.  “Even without the promise of eventual payoff.”

The Bat’s laughter grated low in her ears as they came to a narrow stair cut into the rock and began to descend. “It wasn’t your work ethic that was in question, Miss Gordon, so much as your ability to make excuses for the time you are going to be absent from your father’s home and your schoolwork for the coming months.”

“I’m far enough ahead on my schoolwork that I’m not likely to have any complaints if I slow down.  And as long as I make a token appearance for supper about once a week or so, my absence from home won’t be much noticed either... my father’s hours are long enough that he gave up on tracking my comings and goings years ago.”

“Good.” They reached the foot of the stairs, and a flick of the Bat’s hands lifted the lights in the room to expose an array of gymnastic, acrobatic and martial arts training gear that the Olympic Committee would have approved of. There were other things mixed in, too, things she didn’t recognize - clear, empty water tanks and suspension rigs and elaborate rig-and-pulley systems. _It’s a full dojo and gymnasium, in a cave, with a supercomputer, an FBI-quality forensics lab, an advanced, military-grade automobile, and a giant penny.  It really does go on forever...._

When the Bat turned and gave her a deliberate bow, hands folded, that at least was familiar. _Sensei to student._ “This is where we will begin.”

* * *

 

 _Fourteen... fifteen... sixteen..._  Barbara’s arms burned, her arms sparkled from the sweat that coated them, her shoulders felt like they were going to come out of their sockets.   _Seventeen._  Every muscle in her chest was on fire.  Even her neck ached.   _Eighteen._  In spite of the natural chill of the Batcave and the skant tank top she wore, she felt like she was burning up, hotter than lying on the beach on a scalding day, flat on the sand.   _Nineteen._  She wasn’t going to make it.  She was going to die right here, and it wasn’t going to be from dropping the bar - it was just going to be exhaustion.  One more this set... _Twenty._  She groaned as she hefted the bar one last time, setting it on the rack above her head.

 _Two minutes.  Two minutes then another set of twenty.  She said five sets._  Certainly, she had done five already, right?  The Bat wanted to push her, not break her.

Except that she had a photographic memory.  If the set she just finished was not her first of the day, she’d remember the others, and she clearly did not.  Occasionally genius left no room for excuses.

“Three men, narrow alley, two knives and a baseball bat - aluminum, not wood - and one civilian. She’s up against a dumpster, they’re arrayed around her, you’re on the fire escape. Plan?” Robin, who was doing slow cartwheels and handstands behind her and supposed acting as her spotter, seemed to have decided that now was the time to talk group tactics. Of course. She wasn’t sure if the fact that there was a hint of sympathy in that lovely voice of his made it better or worse.

“Body language.  Muggers, rapists, or killers?”  Barbara bent her elbows, wincing as a dull pain throbbed through her arms at that simple motion.

Robin replied with a careful flatness to his voice that took most of the emotion out of it. “Two muggers. The big boy with a knife looks like he’s thinking about stepping up to rape tonight. Either they haven’t killed yet or they’ve killed so much they don’t give a damn.”

 _Time’s up, Gordon.  No chance he’ll let you off the hook just because your arms are falling off mid-conversation._  Barbara reached for the bar again.  “Thunder batarang behind them... in their peripheral vision, if possible.  They turn to look, hopefully run, but in case they...”  Her arms buckled, steadied, and she focused on the bar. _Four._  “Ugh... where was I?”

“In case they don’t run.” His voice was almost by her ear now, and that meant he’d seen her arms buckle. That he was worried enough she’d drop the bar on herself that he’d stopped dancing and around and started acting like a normal spotter. _Dammit._

“I’ve got this...”  She insisted.   _Six._  “Drop down between... them and the girl.  Big bat guy first...”   _Seven._

“How?” He stayed kneeling behind her, murmuring into her ear.

“Low strike... take his knees out...”  She grunted.   _Eight._ _Need breath for lifting.  Not talking.  Hurts to breathe._  “Then the knife guy, if he hasn’t run.  If they run, chase them.  Net or grapple line...”

“Two knife guys,” he reminded her softly. “Wannabe rapist runs. The other guy goes for you with his knife. Backhand grip - knows how to use it.”

“Armor plating in...”  She growled, pushing hard on the bar.  “In the arm.  Of the suit.  Block.  Chop to wrist.”

“I won’t ask how you put him down after that - easy. Run down the wannabe or help the girl?”

“Run him down...”   _Twelve.  Halfway there... more than..._  “He’s frustrated.”

“Yeah.” He went quiet for a few seconds, listening to her work - to the grate of her breathing and the flex of her muscles and the groan in her chest she couldn’t quite hold in. Then he spoke up again, voice a murmur, and something in the back of her brain that wasn’t busy screaming at her arms to stop causing themselves that aching, grating pain recognized that this had to be his own question, not the Bat’s. “What do you do when you catch him?”

“Break his leg.”  Barbara said the words quickly as her breath rushed out, leaving space in her lungs for a deep inhalation.  “Tie him up.”  Another repetition.  “Call the cops.”

He didn’t say anything else until she finished the set.

She finally racked the bar.   _Five minute breather.  Five minutes or I won’t make it through the next set._  “I pass your test?”

“I don’t give tests. That’s her job, I think.” He was sitting on the cave floor behind her, from the sound of it, and she could feel him watching her. “Just wanted to know.”

“What did you learn?”  She pushed herself into a sitting position to stimulate blood flow, grunting at the pain that shot up from her hips as she did. He actually was sitting on the floor, dark hair spilling a few lightly damp curls onto his face, watching her through the mask with his legs tucked up under him and his dainty acrobat’s cape barely touching the floor. It was annoying cute.

So was that little half smile. “That you’d hurt him more than I would and less than she would. What that means, I don’t know, but that’s what I learned.”

“He needs to know...”  She laid back, closing her eyes.   _One more minute._  “What it’s like to be helpless.  And that there are consequences.  He doesn’t need to be tortured, or incapacitated permanently.  But he needs to know.”

He made a small sound in his throat that might have been agreement, understanding, or her imagination. “Ready to go again?”

“No.”  But she reached for the bar once more.  “Going to be in range to actually spot me this time?”

“I’ll be right here, Barbara,” he told her in that quiet, sincere voice. She didn’t want to find it nearly as comforting as she did, considering that she didn’t even know for sure what his name was, but what she wanted didn’t seem to come into it.

“Good.”  She lifted the weights from the rack again.  Her arms immediately began to protest again. _One._  At least she could drown that not even remotely rational discomfort with her equally irrational comfort in the pain and exertion of the weights.

* * *

When the British Special Air Service had needed to train its operatives for close quarters combat operations against terrorists and hostage-takers of all kinds, their officers and most experienced Sergeants had devised the Killing House - a two-story, eight-room little building filled with targets and cameras designed to simulate the high-risk business of a live combat breach. Like everything else in the Batcave, Barbara’s _sensei_ had spared no expense in her own imitation - a hundred cubic meter block of simulated Gotham, reconfigurable by automated systems into dozens of different configurations based on actual floor plans in the city, and lacking only the stone, brick, dirt and the smell of the real city to make it real. It sat near what Barbara thought of as the bottom of the cave (though in places it went much deeper), close enough to the underground river still cutting its way down through the stone that she could smell the water and hear its distant rumble.

When she’d taken her first run through what her teacher called Murderer’s Row and come through with a score that was good enough to make Robin whistle, she’d decided she loved it. It was the perfect urban playground - a chance to show off her speed, her strength, her agility and her patience. Even her creativity, which had surprised the Bat more than once. Not that she would show it, of course: “Good. Again,” was as high a praise as she’d yet offered. But Barbara could tell.

Today, however, love was not the word she would have used to describe her feelings for the simulation she had just finished running for the ninth time.

 _Eight times.  I know the house like the back of my hand... I knew it like the back of my hand after the second.  I know every loose floorboard and upturned rug and rattling pipe.  I know where the hostages are, where the dangers are.  I can read what the computer’s going to do with it before it’s done it.  What do I have left to learn, here?_  Finally, though she had prickled the last three times she was sent through the simulation, this was the first time she responded verbally.  “I don’t see why I’m doing this so many times.  I’ve mastered what I see myself learning at all.”

Robin, who’d been practicing with a set of handcuffs for the last fifteen minutes while he watched her and pretended not to, opened his mouth to say something clever and then shut it again just as quickly when she gave him half the look she wanted to. He went back to his handcuffs, flicking them closed around his wrist and then setting about picking them again, carefully avoiding looking at her now.

“Where are you?” She couldn’t see her teacher, might have been alone with Robin in the dark of the cave for all that she could tell, but the conclusion didn’t calculate. If the Bat wanted her doing the exercise, the Bat would be watching it. Her voice rose.  “You’re here somewhere.  Answer me!”

“Are you satisfied, Miss Gordon?” That growling, gravel voice spoke from behind her, jolting nerves the simulation had already worn ragged.

“Do I _look_ satisfied?”  Barbara rounded on the Bat, advancing toward her, very nearly stalking.  “In the entire time that you’ve known me, have I ever been completely satisfied with _anything_ I’ve done?  But this is wasting time.  This!”  She gestured toward the house set.  “Is something that I’m well past the point of diminishing returns on.  So I’m ready to move on.  I’m ready to learn _more_ than I’ll learn by another thousand runs at this same exercise.”

They traded a look over her shoulder, the Bat and Robin, and she had the distinct impression that an appeal for mercy had been conducted without her having asked for it. The Bat turned back toward the simulated brownstone. “Reset the exercise, Robin. Miss Gordon, with me.”

Barbara, in spite of her still visible rage, fell into step behind the Bat.   _I’ve made my point.  Now I just have to not look petulant.  Not.  Look.  Petulant.  Because I’m right.  And a girl who’s right isn’t petulant.  She is righteously indignant!_  Her teacher, apparently undisturbed, proceeded to the corner of the house and turned against it, flattening herself subtly as the lighting conditions dimmed to simulate city night. She waited there for a moment, letting the illusion cement itself, and then glided swiftly across one of the windows and rapped at the door - three long, deep knocks - before sliding back the way she’d come, ducking behind the corner of the house and concealing herself in the shadows behind Barbara.

The door opened, the computerized projection of light and sound that indicated one of the five men inside had come to investigate pausing there for a long moment, and then closed again. The Bat signaled for Barbara to follow, then took a small string of firecrackers from her belt and attached them to the small window near the kitchen before drawing her grapnel gun and mounting the roof in a single quick shot of the line. Beneath them, the firecrackers snapped and cracked, and there was a pounding on the stairs and the sound of the window being flung open. Then a shot and a shouted “Who’s there?” Then silence.

Her teacher was already in motion again, dropping another noisemaker off the back roof, and then - just a few seconds after it went off, while there was still the sound of movement from inside - flicked a batarang from her belt and severed the wire connecting the house to the power lines. Inside, the lights died and men swore. Another item from the belt - a simple flash-power pellet - went over the side of the roof into the garden, and then her teacher pivoted off the roof with one hand still wrapped in the grapnel line and came crashing through the window of the master bedroom.

Twenty seconds later, the main lights came up again, and the Bat’s growl came from inside. “Come.”

She dropped down into the room more carefully, treating even the broken safety glass in the window with respect, and surveyed the room - four hostages on the ground, unmarked by the blinking red marks that would have simulated injuries, and three simulated thugs down that she could see. Anger had been driven from her voice, pushed away by awe, and that was what came from her mouth when she finally spoke.  “That... was less than ninety seconds.”

The Bat turned to her, and nodded, once, fixing her with the steady regard of those blue-lit white lenses. “You approached from the front, from the back, from above, from below. Through every practicable entrance. You were faster than I am, lightly armored as you are. Can you explain what happened?”

 _What was different?  The cape.  The fireworks.  The darkness.  Three things she had that I did not._  “They were confused.  By more than just flashing fists and flying batarangs.”

“Theatricality.” A hint of approval under the growl, this time. “Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot, Barbara. Do I succeed because I am well-trained, well-equipped, well-informed? No. I _must_ be all these things, but it is not enough to be those things. I make them afraid, and because they are afraid, they are slow. Weak. Hesitant. They run when they should fight, and fight when they should run. Teach them to fear you, and that fear will make you invincible to them.”

“And what about the civilians?  To us, a frightened criminal is less dangerous, but to the people... doesn’t that make them moreso?”

A nod, again approval, and the Bat turned to descend the narrow stairs of the house over the mechanical dummies playing her victims. “Given time, yes. When there are hostages, you can’t draw it out as you might in the street. You can’t give them time to move from fear to panic - you have to frighten them, distract them and then strike before they can lash out. But in a broader sense, the opposite is true - frightened criminals become cautious, hesitate to attack even an easy victim because they fear what might be in the dark, sometimes even reconsider their choices.”

“We’re streetlights.”  Barbara spoke in sudden understanding.  “The eyes that might see them, judge them, punish them.”

“The voice in the dark that could speak anywhere, at any time.” The Bat passed out the front door, Barbara following after her, and looked up toward the viewing station where Robin stood with a wide, laughing grin on his face. “Nothing makes a predator more cautious than the thought that something bigger and more hungry might be out there in the dark waiting for them.”

 _Perhaps we’re less streetlights and more Smilodon._  Barbara nodded.  “I understand.”  She glanced toward the rack of equipment.  “Can I go through that before giving the house another run?”

“It’s there to be used,” her teacher told her with a low, dark chuckle, and left her to begin planning from scratch.


End file.
